Category: Opinion & Editorial

     I spent most of this week dealing with the media fallout from the release of the Yale University study on dental radiographs and brain tumors.  Where I was talking to reporters, we all will be explaining things to our patients for quite a while.  My task as an ADA spokesperson is to put a story like this in ... [continue reading]

     One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean. Approaching the boy, he asked, “What are you doing?”      The youth replied, “I’m throwing starfish back into the ocean. The surf is up and the tide is ... [continue reading]

     As you know, it is an important time to be a member of organized dentistry. As I travel the state in my capacity as ODA president, talking to various local dental societies and other dental groups, I like to ask my colleagues a series of questions that revolve around what our profession would look like if the ODA did not ... [continue reading]

     Last month, the ODA Today featured a forum on the main issue in the case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, known to some as “Obamacare.” We featured competing columns discussing whether the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution authorized ... [continue reading]

     As many of you know, I read extensively outside of dentistry.  I try to see what is going on in the world of business and attempt to find parallels to the practice of dentistry.  Respected marketing guru Seth Godin was blogging recently about what he called “Information Density.”  From a ... [continue reading]

     “Lawyers spend a great deal of their time shoveling smoke.” Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841 - 1935) Actually, they’re not the only ones.      Ok, this month, for better or worse, I’m taking off the non-latex rubber gloves and putting on the legal, boxing ones. (And, as my ... [continue reading]

     During my professional career I’ve dealt with four, two by direct contact  while the other two were via seminars or they made contributions to this publication. Three had a ‘Patient First’ bias and one was fiscally focused. Three of the four I’ve mentioned in op-eds.      My ... [continue reading]

    “I’ll be shocked and disappointed and on the offensive. Unless something new arises from where we are today, it’ll be behavior (from me) you haven’t witnessed.”- Ohio State Director of Athletics Gene Smith stating what his reaction would be if the NCAA issued harsher penalties than what the ... [continue reading]

    Communication: (n) a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or behavior. (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary)       It’s sometimes amazing how things happen in multiples.  We’ve all had two or three patients die or ... [continue reading]

     Dale Carnegie warned us that “when dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion.”  With each passing year, I become more aware of the truth of that observation.      The continuing efforts of the Kellogg Foundation and other ... [continue reading]